Post-9/11 vet unemployment at 4.4 percent in June

Unemployment for the latest generation of veterans rose slightly in June but still remains near record-low levels, government data show.

The unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans ticked to 4.4 percent, up from May's 4-percent mark. But the May unemployment rate was the lowest ever recorded since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking the group in September 2008. And if this June's 4.4 percent rate had come out one year earlier, it would have been an all-time low at that time.

The nation as a whole added a robust 287,000 jobs in June, a substantial improvement from May's 38,000 new jobs, while the national unemployment rate ticked up from 4.7 percent to 4.9 percent.

After years of double-digit unemployment rates, which sometimes reached into the teens, post-9/11 veterans have seen an unprecedented run of success in the job market. Their unemployment rates of late have regularly bettered both the standard national unemployment rate, which is seasonally adjusted and makes for an inexact comparison, and the nonveteran unemployment rate, which, like the post-9/11 rate, is not seasonally adjusted and is thus more comparable. The nonveteran unemployment rate in June was 4.8 percent.

Unemployment for veterans of all generations stood at 4.2 percent in June, up from May's 3.4 percent mark.